Double Game by Sophie Calle With the participation of Paul Auster
8vo. pp. 293. illustrated, many in colour. hardcover (near fine -stain on spine). [London]: Violette Editions, [2007].
ISBN-10: 1933045698 / ISBN-13: 9781933045696
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Double Game was the first major publication in English by French artist Sophie Calle (born 1953), and is her bestselling title to date. It takes the form of a double jeu or double game between the work of Sophie Calle and the fiction of Paul Auster. The story begins with Maria, a fictional character in Paul Auster’s novel, Leviathan. Most of the fictional Maria’s works are, in fact, based on those of the real-life Sophie Calle. The first section of Double Game features Calle’s representations of the fictional Maria’s works. We see the pieces both as they’re described in their fictional context and as Calle’s own interpretation of the descriptions from Paul Auster’s novel. In the second section, the story delves deeper into Calle’s world, with a sequence of Calle’s seminal narrative and abstract works in texts and images that were in turn appropriated by the fictional Maria in Leviathan. The third section of Double Game switches the focus back to Maria’s original creator, Paul Auster, who takes Calle as his subject, formulating for her the Gotham Handbook, which offers personalized instructions for the artist on “How to Improve Life in New York City.”
